The Elder Son
by Arcane Aegis
Summary: In a world where the Sage of Six Paths names Uchiha his heir, and Sarutobi's students are the focal point of a struggle over an ultimate weapon, Team Seven is caught in a web of secrets and lies about themselves and the world they live in. The villains are redeemed... but there are no more heroes. [Naruto/Sakura] [Orochimaru/Anko]. Team 7 lead by Orochimaru.
1. Death of a God, Birth of a World

"Some times, I worry about my children. They will grow up in a world where the darkness beyond knowledge has been banished to a corner of heaven, and for that I am proud of my work. But evil will creep into the hearts of men, and I fear that my actions have armed the world for conflict beyond what I can possibly imagine. And it will be their job to see peace reign, no matter what the cost. That is what worries me, and unlike the petty fears of the merchant or the lord, mine encompass more than I will ever know."

* * *

**The**** Elder Son**

_Death of a God, Birth of a World_

* * *

"I name you Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Chomai, Gyuki, and Kurama!" As the Sage hollered out each name the demons of chakra that would one day become legend snorted gratefully and walked, galloped, flew, slithered and swam away, each deciding to carve out new territory itself and become a master within its own domain. All but two. Isobu remained, waiting patiently with Kurama lounging on the turtle's shell. They were both barely larger than a regular member of their species, and would be totally unremarkable if not for Isobu's three tails and Kurama's nine. The Sage of Six Paths watched the Yonbi lumber away, contented in his creation's safety, then turned to the last two.

"M-may I t-talk to y-y-y?" Isobu asked shyly, one eye reflexively closed and the other half-lidded. "T-there m-m-"

"Yeah, whatever," Kurama said dismissively, hopping off of his brother's back and approaching the master of the Rinnegan. "I was thinkin', maybe that desert down south? I dunno... listen old man, before I get going, I gotta say something."

"Oh, yes?" the Sage inquired. "Well, I have some time before I need to dispose of the body. What can I do for you, Kurama?"

The kyuubi nodded. "This is about your kids. I know you're planning on naming Senju your successor, but..."

One bushy white eyebrow raised in curiosity and faint disbelief. "_Really_, now. What makes you say that, young fox?"

"Don't call me that!" Kurama snapped. "Senju's charming and strong and whatever, I know you like that stuff, but he's too headstrong. Is that what you want for all those samurai, those ninja? Uchiha is quiet and kinda strange, but definately leadership material."

"Kurama..." the Sage sighed. "Why must you contradict me on even my most well-thought out dictions?"

"If you ever take my advice, once in your life, make it now." Kurama leveled a gaze that could make volcanoes erupt with molten rage at the man, met by cool purple and spiraling white. "Don't pick Senju." With that, the fox demon hopped up and ran after Kokuo, little brushfires rearing up in his footsteps. The Sage appeared to be in deep thought, his brow furrowed, until a mild cough from the Sanbi tuned him back to the present. "I'm sorry to be such a b-bother..." the turtle muttered, turning away sadly.

"I know what bothers you," the Sage predicted, and Isobu stopped in his tracks. "C-can you h-help me?" it asked hopefully, and the Sage nodded almost imperceptibly. "I will do this for you," he said quietly. "But it will come at great cost. Is that truly how you wish to live life? There is no shame in what they will become."

Isobu raised its armored head, and a flash of red gleamed from its eye. "I will do what you ask of me." Its voice rang with sudden confidence.

"Then you will know what to do."

The Sage of Six Paths abruptly walked over to the crater in the earth, standing on the edge of a depression the width of a lake. That was probably exactly what it would become in later years. Isobu settled down beneath a tree a few hundred meters away and fell asleep in the shade, and so it was only the Sage who would know what was to cone.

In the center of the blasted landscape sat a black, twisted hunk of metal and flesh. It vaguely resembled a human, if one was to squint hard enough, though its single ear, the mouth that occupied the entire lower half of its face and its backwards knee joints rendered it utterly alien. Its once-great tails were gone, and the eye with twelve tomoe that spawned all the chakra in the world had been carved from its socket by the Sage's sword. Even as far as it was from him, the Sage's Rinnegan picked out every detail of the dead body, and the shinobi knew that one day, it would rise again. The best he could do was delay it, to keep such a weapon of terrible power from the abuse of vengeful gods and men.

He channeled chakra to his eyes, the pattern of the ninjutsu familiar from years of use and dependability. His most reliable tool, the Deva Path, would become the instrument of the Juubi's incarceration. He brought his hands together, the power of his Bloodline Limit literally bending space and time around him into a configuration he found pleasing. On the surface, it was just another gravity manipulation, but the Sage was fond of giving names to the great and important. The very fabric of reality darkened to a matte black, and he hurled all of his energy into the sky.

"Chibaku Tensei!" he roared, and the body of the demon rocketed into the sky with the surrounding earth in tow. They disappeared in the heavens, but the Sage could easily feel the world around him. The gravity sphere reached out with tendrils of sucking power, roaring down to earth in the form of whirlwinds each corner of the globe, and soon _everything_ was aligned. Mountains, deserts, forests, trees, lakes, boulders and glaciers from every pillar soared to the sky, free of earth's bounds. The foul corpse was battered from each side by earthly bodies ascended to heaven, the power of the Rinnegan pulling them deeper and tighter into the vortex of mass. The hours passed while the Sage of Six Paths waited for his ultimate work to finish.

A pale white sphere hung in the sky, featureless and smooth. He was pleased.

XXX

Shukaku gazed out onto the desert, a swirling tornado from space coming dangerously close to the tanuki as it drew sand inexorably into the moon. The sun's heat warmed the beast considerably, drawing a slow smile on its face. It stepped one paw into the churning maelstrom of rocky dust, and became one with the desert. One tail drew a slow circle on the ground, and when it finished, the Ichibi was gone.

XXX

The Sage had done many things in his life, but none were quite so hard as dying. It had taken many years for him to accumulate the knowledge and sheer chakra to attempt something so powerful as to kill a god, or create an entirely new planet in the universe. The Creation of All Things was his greatest work, having evenly distributed the energy of the Juubi amongst every living thing on earth. It was his hope that some day, the Beast would fade into legend, allowing the Beasts to finally-

"Aaaagh!" he moaned, a convulsion racking his frail, malnourished frame. Sweat was pouring down his face and body, and though he desperately wanted nothing more than to see the sky again, he knew it was perhaps a bit much to ask. His sons, Uchiha and Senju, were sitting quietly in chairs at the foot of his bed. At his cry of pain they both half-rose, then settled again when he shot them a fatherly glare that threatened worse than death from the deathbed. They couldn't comfort him now, not in his time of passing. That was the most painful part, being unable to reassure his only children of the security of the future.

Only two things brought him comfort. One was a kind of smug satisfaction, happiness in the knowledge that his successor would lead the human race into a peaceful and prosperous future. It had always been a goal of his, but there had never seemed to be the time... The other was the gentle, reassuring presence of two familiar chakra signatures outside his home. It seemed Isobu had heeded his final words before the creation of the moon. Kurama was probably there to gloat to Uchiha about outlasting the famous Sage of Six Paths.

"Father? Why do you laugh with gaiety at this time of sorrow?" asked Senju in his usual tactless fashion. "Are you not afraid?"

"No. Not anymore." The Sage drew a breath, knowing his time drew short. "It is time that I did something I ought to have done long ago, my sons. I must name an heir, one to lead our world into the golden age it deserves."

All three of them shifted forward in anticipation, though the Sage could not say why he felt such anxiety. "I love both of you," he mumbled weakly, "but I choose... I choose..." He seemed to crumble in on himself, but a surge of unnatural strength drew him up to his fullest height. "Uchiha." The man's purple eyes bored into the ancestor of the Sharingan. "Will you carry on my legacy?"

"I..." the man stuttered, flabbergasted by the honor. "I-I will, father. I will make you proud."

"Good..." the Sage murmured. He lay back, stretching his arms above his head casually. "I am... proud... already..." He released a breath, almost like a sigh, and died.

"Father?" Senju breathed, sorrow and confusion warring in his voice. "Father, no, you can't! Father!" The blond man rushed forward and buried his face in the dead man's chest, sobbing heavily. Uchiha tentatively reached out and placed one hand comfortingly on his brother's shoulder, but even his face was screwed up in mourning. A single tear escaped his eye, and in that moment Uchiha swore to do his best in the Sage of Six Paths' stead.

XXX

Kurama pounced on Senju as soon as the boy left the house a few days later. "Hi," the fox muttered, his voice a stark contrast to his flamboyant behavior. "I'm real sorry to hear about your old man. He was a great guy, you know."

"Indeed," Uchiha affirmed stepping into the sunshine after his younger sibling. "We are proud to have inherited his strength and power."

"Yeah..." Senju murmured, almost too quietly to hear.

"Walk with me," said Uchiha, and Kurama bounced off Senju's chest and followed the dark-haired son away from the house. He was pleased to note that the kyuubi's growth followed the trend his father had predicted almost exactly, his tails now twice his body length and as thick as his arm in even the thin places. With a few centuries of development, the demon would become exactly what the Sage had predicted, which was probably a good thing. Uchiha couldn't even begin to guess otherwise.

"So, you still working on that deal with the spirit courts over the contracts?" Kurama asked idly, his nine tails waving like fans in the morning air. "I heard you got Manda and Gamabunta to agree, that's good. I could maybe get a few of my brothers to pitch in, and you'll have those summoning pacts done in no time!"

"You've decided on genders then?" Uchiha mused. "That's nice. I suppose I wish you luck in finding a healthy mate without feeling awkward about your sexuality or whatnot-"

"Do you know why?" Kurama interrupted bluntly. "I did it for a reason, you know."

"I can't even begin to imagine," Uchiha said truthfully. "I always thought you would support Senju's claim. It would certainly be safer for you and your brothers and sisters."

"Just brothers. It was a unanimous decision," the kyuubi joked. A part of his mind wondered why he had thrown his support behind the man with the ability to control him and the other tailed beasts absolutely, but the more rational part of him dismissed it. Uchiha was trustworthy, and they all knew it.

"I worry about Senju sometimes," Uchiha confided, and the kyuubi paused. "He seems more... aggressive, in our talks. Peace wasn't just going to break out like a war, but he's inflaming some tempers in the assembly. I wish I knew what was bothering him."

"You are," Kurama informed him. "He thinks that love and friendship and all that garbage will sweep all the hatred and bigotry and envy in the world under some metaphysical rug, and we all know what's going to happen with the _last_ thing swept under a rug of sorts."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

Uchiha squinted at the demon. "You're a strange one, Kurama. I wish my father had made you more... human, in appearance. It would certainly make conversations like these less troublesome. Och, I sound like Shikanto now." He smiled, and the weight of his friendship suddenly felt heavier in Kurama's heart.

"I wish he did too," the fox said, so quietly that Uchiha amost missed it. "I would like nothing more..."

_'I am so, so sorry for this. Believe me, if there was any other way, I would do it in a heartbeat.'_ Kurama started to say something, but evidently thought better of it and lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Uchiha frowned, certain that something was bothering his furry friend.

Unfortunately, that was when Senju tried to kill him. The younger brother burst into their line of sight, a crazed look in his eyes and a bastard sword in his firm, one-handed grip. The prodigious physical strength that was his birthright made wielding the weapon easy for Senju, and he was now putting it to use trying to end the demon fox. Kurama scrambled back, momentarily shocked by the suddenness of the attack, giving Uchiha the chance to step in and ward his crazed brother off. "What are you doing?" he shouted, shocked by the sheer idiocy of such a plan of attack.

"The fox!" Senju growled, anger inherent in his voice. "_He_ cost me my place as father's favourite! _He_ did this to me! Die, and rot in a frozen hell you bastard!" He charged again, but rage made him predictable and his older brother sidestepped and tripped the man with a simple legsweep. Senju rose again, fiery hatred burning in his every move, but Uchiha incapacitated him with a tap to the back of the head. A genjutsu rushed through his mind, and the younger man lapsed into an uneasy unconsciousness.

"That was... unexpected," Kurama commented, hangin upside down from a tree limb above the path. Uchiha moaned in sudden realization. "We're screwed! Senju has enough power on the assembly to veto everything I try and do, and if he gets his way, humanity will be united in its hatred of _you_! This is a nightmare." He slumped over, resting next to his brother. "How did I not see this coming?"

"I don't blame you," Kurama said smoothly, hopping to the ground and striding over to the pile of brothers. "But I have a plan-"

"You knew this was going to happen!" accused Uchiha, snarling. "Why would you do this to me? To us? What sort of game are you playing at, you damn fox?"

Kurama hung his head, saddened. "You know why. Your brother is right, you know. Your kind has always been distrustful of me and my brothers."

"Then...?"

"Isobu and I have been planning this ever since the Shadow Assembly was formed," the kyuubi admitted. "You two needed an issue to unite against your opposition, and we decided it was going to be me. There's enough circumstantial evidence that, _working together_," he stressed, "your father's dreams will be realized."

"This was a setup," Uchiha whispered numbly. In the distance, he could hear voices shouting. Kurama reached out with one paw and daintily scratched a few gashes on Senju's back, then another set on the unfeeling left arm of Uchiha. The shouting was getting louder.

"Don't waste my sacrifice!" Kurama urged, his voice urgent. "Take this support and make a new civilization. Even if it was united in fear of the Demon Fox, surely you can mould it into whatever you want?"

"You would do this for me?" Uchiha asked, still not entirely comprehending. "You- you... why?"

"Because you would do the same for me, you ridiculously underevolved mammal." Kurama shot him a grin that was, for lack of a better word, foxy. "This is goodbye, old friend. Talk to Isobu, he'll fill you in. Some other time, perhaps." The fox turned and raced into the undergrowth, then across the nearby farmlands. The voices abruptly changed directions, though they were close enough for Uchiha to catch a few words here and there.

_"Monster!"_

_"Damn demons..."_

_"Made of all the hate in Satan's soul and all darkness in the night sky..."_

_"It killed Senju! My hero is dead!"_

_"Die!"_

He had no idea how long it would take, or how much he would have to give, but Uchiha was certain that one day, he would repay Kurama for his friendship. If not him, then his children, or their children. No matter how long it took, Kurama would one day be given a place in the society he helped to create.

"Sir!" called in an attendant, waiting on Uchiha as medics lifted Senju onto a stretcher. "Are you well?"

"Some day, you stinking sheeptheif," Uchiha recalled fondly.

"Sir?"

"Oh! I am perfectly fine," Uchiha lied, covering the scratch on his arm with one hand.

"Sir, who did this to Lord Senju?" the medic reiterated, gesturing at the ninja in question. Uchiha's genjutsu was of a peculiar nature, one that erased memories and made the victim more pliable after their enforced slumber. He planned to put it to good use slandering his oldest and most faithful companion.

"It was... _(Kurama)_... the kyuubi. The nine-tailed fox attacked us."

He hung his head in shame.

XXX

Isobu sat in a cave at the bottom of the crater, rainwater welling around the entrance and rushing over the lip and into the cave in a torrential waterfall. Soon there would be only a pocket of stale air left in the cave, which was fine by the turtle. He only needed the air to protect his charge. Come hell or low tide, he was sworn by his maker to protect something dear to him, and by the Juubi's corpse he planned to do so! The sanbi looked out the entrance to his cave with one bulging eye, watching as rain did its best to turn the site of the demon's death into a lake, then retreated to a semicomfortable patch of sand.

He could not say that his role pleased him, but he would not complain. Befuddling the mind of the Sage's son with sweetened lies had made him uncomfortable, but that was the least of the burden he was expected to carry. Nevertheless, this was the price he paid for his request, and he did so without complaint. Some day, he would be needed again, but until then Isobu had nothing to do and much time in which to do it. Naught but him and his treasure.

The great armored turtle shifted around to settle in, and then closed his eye. He had millenia of waiting to do, a secret to keep, and a task to perform with all his might.


	2. Rain of Oil and Ash

"You think you can stop me, eh? Think you're ready to match knives with the big boys, eh? Ha! I taught you everything you know, you stupid little know-it-all! Listen, you can slow me down, you can give it your all, but in the end, we both know who'll be left standing. And I'll be the one to say 'I told you so', even if it's just to your dead, cooling corpse."

* * *

**The Elder Son**

_Rain of Oil and Ash_

* * *

Any master of sealing techniques could tell you that creating new fuinjutsu was difficult to pull off in the best of circumstances. Mostly because, as the adage says, there's nothing new under the sun. It took some serious imagination and ingenuity to even discover something new, yet possible. Minato was stretching the definition of possible, but he was almost done.

Not a moment too soon either, for as soon as he set his quill down and smiled at his creation the Yondaime was interrupted by an ANBU member whose mask he recognized as Genma Shiranui's. No reason to believe that was so, however. Genma could have easily bought it already and lost his mask to a scavenger of some kind.

"Lord Hokage!" the shinobi shouted, panic evident in his voice no matter how much calm he forced himself to project. "The kyuubi is approximately thirty minutes away from Konohagakure at its current pace, and we are unable to stop the beast nor slow it to any greater degree than presently without incurring catastrophic collateral damage and making a pyrrhic victory inevitable. Captain Uchiha recommended that any final countermeasures you possess that preclude mobilizing the shinobi population be implemented within that timeframe."

"Ahh, yes," Minato scratched the back of his head. "I had something along those lines. Where is Orochimaru? Bastard's probably hiding under a rock somewhere."

"Uh…" the ANBU paused, racking his brains for the answer. "I believe he was sequestered in his personal chambers beneath Hokage Tower until very recently," he said slowly. "He has most likely returned since then."

"Excellent!" Minato roared, snapping his fingers ecstatically. The scroll he'd been furiously scratching into being levitated an inch off the table, rolled itself into a tube, and vanished in a puff of smoke. A tattoo on the inside of his left wrist pulsed slightly, informing him that it now had cargo. "Get back out there, Genma! There's a battle to finish!" He wiggled his fingers, flashed a brilliant gold from his every pore, and vanished into the aether.

"My name is Yamato," the ANBU muttered, and went out the way he'd come in. Last time _he_ borrowed from Shiranui.

The tag Minato had that was closest to the base of the tower was out in the street, so the unaware civilian population had little time to greet their Hokage as he materialized, gained his bearing in a fraction of a second, and ran off into the basement of Konoha's second most imposing landmark. He moved at a frantic pace, appearing as a blur even to the ninja working clerical posts at the time, and very nearly got to his destination before being accosted by the last person he wanted to see.

"Namikaze," the veteran called out, his expression unusually serious. Minato forced himself to stop, compose his face into a semblance of normalcy, and confronted the director with every ounce of patience he could muster.

"Shimura," he intoned. "I am faced with pressing business at the moment, so if this matter is a lengthy one, perhaps later?"

"This is in regards to the invasion which Konoha will experience in just a few minutes," Danzo said simply. Minato wondered briefly how the man knew, but it was futile to guess beyond the broad assumption that Root had an eye in every corner of Fire Country. Not as patently ridiculous as he'd assumed when he took the mantle of Hokage.

"If you are aware, then perhaps you might hurry?" the blond man wondered, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Torune Aburame has informed me that the kyuubi is not the only supernatural entity at the edge of Fire Country," Danzo said lightly. "Your former jonin-sensei and his personal summon are also involved in the combat."

Minato went very still, very quickly. "Are you _absolutely sure_?" he asked, a mixture of fear and eagerness briefly crossing his face. "What are you implying, Danzo?"

The commander of Root shrugged slightly. His face was expressionless, though a third of it was covered anyways. "I am making no implications, merely stating a fact. I assume that you don't care about what I choose to infer from that information?"

"Of course not," Minato hissed, the shadow from the brim of his hat briefly obscuring his face. "I appreciate that you have taken time from your day to inform me of this, but shouldn't you be doing something more productive?" Unspoken, _'Like save this goddamn village from a genocidal demon just a stone's throw away?'_

"Of course, Lord Hokage," Danzo bowed at the waist and swept off, dropping off of Minato's radar of direct concern. The Yondaime ran full-tilt into the basement sector of the building, footsteps echoing through labyrinthine hallways as he approached Orochimaru's laboratory. Minato burst in, his gaze flickering around wildly, and settled on the teammate of his old instructor in the middle of the room.

Orochimaru's pale face was wan and tired-looking, dark bags under his eyes from a week of sleepless nights. He had to have been pushing fifty, yet the revolutionary jutsu of the sannin anchored him tentatively to youth. Right now, a scowl adorned his face as he scratched an entry into a data log, handwriting thin and shaky from overconsumption of caffeine.

"Well?" Minato fairly screamed, his own nerves frayed to breaking point. "Is my son here?"

Orochimaru glanced up, irritated by the Hokage but nevertheless bound to his will. "The boy was born less than two hours ago, Lord Hokage," the sannin bit off, finishing the entry in his log. "Would you like to see him?"

It irked Minato that the creepy man and his underlings had been the ersatz midwives for Kushina's baby, yet he could grudgingly accept that it had been necessary. His lover's physical health had been deteriorating for some time now, and there was… _that_ matter to consider as well. Orochimaru stood up and pushed out from his desk, looking decidedly older than he usually did. In the near corner of the main antechamber was a wooden cradle, surrounded by seals to monitor the baby's health and alert Orochimaru's staff to any problems. Trust a scientist to automate a nursery.

Orochimaru reached into the cradle and withdrew the child, who was barely a day old and already clearly a Namikaze. A tuft of blond hair blew wispily from his forehead, and Minato allowed himself a moment to be astonished by the adorableness. "He's certainly cute," murmured the Yondaime, and Orochimaru looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Sadly, Kushina recently succumbed to a, _ah_, complication," the extremely creepy shinobi muttered evasively. "Yakushi is in the middle of an extensive correctional procedure right now, and we'd like to wait a day or two until she has visitors."

"That's perfectly acceptable," Minato reasoned, trusting the man's diagnosis. "I must go now, as there's something urgent that requires my immediate attention. May I take Naruto?"

"Naruto?" Orochimaru blinked. "Oh, yes, of course. Your son is perfectly healthy Lord Hokage. I look forward to his public introduction. I will ask Tsubaki to inform you of the end of Kushina's stay in the infirmary."

Minato was hardly listening. After the greenlight to take Naruto with him was given, the Yellow Flash disappeared in a yellow flash to street level. A quick check of his person revealed that he was adequately equipped with marked kunai, a bottle of soldier pills, and the ever-important scroll. Satisfied, he employed his legendary speed and raced for the boundary of Konoha, heading vaguely in the direction of the pillar of fire roaring into the sky.

XXX

"Shiki Fujin!"

XXX

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked sadly at the triangular hat in Shisui's hands, doing his best to meet the sad gaze of the Uchiha ninja. "Are you certain that Lord Yondaime did not select a successor before the battle, knowing full well that he did not intend to survive?" he asked, maintaining his composure despite the overwhelming sadness at the death of Jiraiya's student. Speaking of the self-described 'super pervert'…

"And what of Jiraiya?" he asked again, and Shisui shrugged indifferently. "He shouted lots of stuff that probably set little Naruto's ears on fire and left. Itachi is tracking him, but you know how good that bastard is at running."

The Sandaime's ears latched onto the name. "Naruto? Isn't that the name of Jiraiya's first character?"

Shisui glanced at the book on the desk in front of him, the dust jacket of 'The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi' winking back at him. "I suppose," he conceded, "but I meant the Yondaime's son. The boy is with Danzo ri-WHOA!" The Uchiha shouted in surprise as the elder Sarutobi leapt from his seat, grabbing the Hokage's mantle as he sprinted past.

Danzo was in the Hokage's office, sitting in a visitor's chair and watching with a small smile as the young Naruto rolled around on the floor, lacking any other means of transportation. The Namikaze's face was alight with curiosity, completely alien to the general despair pervading the village. Hiruzen relaxed, relieved that nothing untoward had happened thus far to the boy.

"Shimura, what will I do with you? One of these days you'll be the death of me!"

Danzo didn't flinch. "Lord Hokage," he rumbled, hauling himself painfully to his feet. Sarutobi noticed belatedly that the leader of Root was now relying on a cane. A sturdy weapon and a sign of venerable power, but a crutch nonetheless.

"I am not the Hokage anymore," he reminded the division commander, and Danzo nodded placatingly. "I am concerned that we have become complacent," he commented, sitting back down and turning to Naruto again, who was in the process of trying to remove his own shirt. "Look what happened yesterday, Lord. We came within a quarter hour of complete annihilation, and we lost the most powerful ninja of the last century to a suicide technique!"

"I am not recommending you for the post of Godaime Hokage," Sarutobi warned, pulling out a pipe. As little as ten years ago, Danzo would have said something rude and extinguished the burning tobacco with a low-key wind ninjutsu, but now he couldn't find the energy to do anything but wallow in Konoha's impotence. "I warned you that this would happen," Danzo muttered, defeated. "Why didn't you listen to me?"

"Are you suggesting that Sunagakure managed to set the nine-tailed fox on us? You know perfectly well that the jinchuriki is in our possession."

"No," Danzo sighed. "I meant Gamabunta. The Great Toad was responsible for three-quarters of our casualties in the conflict, and my men claim that the Second Division was slaughtered when the kyuubi, ah, _sat_ on them. It appeared to be an accident, at any rate."

Sarutobi sat down behind the desk and donned the Hokage's hat. "Jiraiya is an enigma, even to me. Why he would bow to the demands of Suna, I can't say."

"Then _ask_ them," the Root leader deadpanned. "We are allied, at least on paper. If they resort to relying on the efforts of a notoriously unreliable rogue ninja, perhaps a suitable show of force may persuade them."

"It wouldn't work," Hiruzen refuted, feeling frustrated himself. "The Toad Sage is the least of our concerns, and Suna knows it. There are too many factions that the Hokage has to manage in the village, and without the Yellow Flash I'll have to do it. Jiraiya will have to wait."

"It's funny. I always wanted the job, but once you got it my interest just dropped off completely. Now you have to run the show, and you weren't exactly a spring chicken the first time around."

"We have too much to do, Danzo. I'm afraid for our future, afraid that the war cut scars too deep in the five villages. Konoha used to fend for itself amidst legions of foes, might outweighing their advantages under my leadership. I passed the torch, and it seems you were right when you said Minato wouldn't live up to my standards."

"Which standards? The kid performed an incredibly advanced sealing technique in defense of Konoha and all it stands for."

"When shinobi… reach a certain point, they start to live by different rules. The victor isn't determined by who has the most surprises, or who's stronger, but by who makes the first mistake. Ranks like jonin or chunin don't matter anymore, because their reputation precedes them. Even when they take students, they tend to surpass their allies and foes, because they've entered that strange, elite place where few last very long.

"You never went there, because you were too wrapped up in running all those little projects of yours… but when you're an elite ninja, you don't live very long. You become famous, written about in the Bingo Books of other nations, and eventually someone studies you long enough to outsmart you. That's why you can't sacrifice yourself for anything: your job is to live."

"That's everyone's job, you senile, decrepit excuse for a ninja," Danzo grumbled.

"Not Namikaze's," Hiruzen countered. "His death was a loss of morale for the village, a loss of a Hokage, and certainly devastated his friends and acquaintances. But it's more than that, because a shinobi in the forces is expected to die at his leader's command. But for an elite, they're not expendable. Any fuinjutsu master could have sealed the kyuubi, and I would expect them to, because any Hokage should know that they aren't allowed to die!"

"I take it you don't approve of Minato's actions?"

"Of course I don't. I'm not fit to be Hokage anymore, and now I have to explain Naruto to the whole village. They'll never believe me if I tell them the truth, because it's easier to accept that he's the demon incarnate. It's the same problem every Kage faces with their jinchuriki."

"The ninja will accept him."

"Yes, but the civilians are equally important. Moreso in this case, even, because he'll most likely grow up with them."

"Just say he's the Yondaime's son. That… no, no it won't."

"Precisely."

Danzo rested his face in his palm, and suddenly he looked every bit his age. Neither of them were long for the world, and unlike Sarutobi's ageing students, they had no pretenses about their usefulness in combat other than as fuel for jutsu like the one Minato had impaled himself upon.

"Konoha needs to be… proactive…" Sarutobi muttered.

The leader of Root pretended not to hear him. "I have a solution," he proposed. "I can take the boy in myself. Nobody in ANBU will question his purpose in my care, and he won't grow up in the sort of ignorance you propose by just… just _leaving_ him there!"

"I absolutely refuse to allow an innocent child to become a shinobi at such an age!" Sarutobi thundered, startling Naruto into a crying fit. Both men looked at the baby, but Danzo was the one to pick him up and hold him. The Hokage continued, "I will not have another Kakashi Hatake, or another Itachi Uchiha."

"Perhaps I could appoint a guardian?" Danzo offered. "Someone impartial to his circumstances."

"We don't even know who his mother is," Sarutobi offered. "Perhaps one of our medics could narrow down the possibilities, and she could assume those responsibilities?"

"That-"

"I'm afraid not," said Orochimaru, startling both of them. The aptly-named ninja had entered the Hokage's office with less noise than a predator drawing breath.

_'I'm older than I thought,'_ they both considered, followed by _'How did he do that?'_

"What make you believe you have a say in this matter?" his former jonin instructor asked reproachfully. "You forfeited any say in the running of this village when you refused the post of Hokage."

"That may be, but Kushina Uzumaki cannot be exposed to Naruto Namikaze at this time," Orochimaru spat out distastefully. "Her presence will weaken the seal, being the nine-tails' previous host. She is also in critical condition, and will probably be unfit to be either a ninja or a mother for the foreseeable future."

"Can you suggest an interim solution?" Danzo asked.

"Yes; don't look for an interim solution." With that, the snake shinobi was gone, his form disappearing in a puff of steam. Sarutobi shook his head and sighed, stumped.

"It is fortunate that the village is undamaged," Danzo put in, a futile effort to lighten the mood of the conversation. "If the kyuubi had not been sealed again, Jiraiya could very well have broken into the village again, and we may very well have had a much greater problem."

"Shimura, how many civilians know about Namikaze's affair with Uzumaki?"

"_I_ didn't know, Lord Hokage."

"Very well, I propose that Naruto be left in the care of a chunin, with minimal ANBU guard detail for the next six years, followed by a scholarship tenure at the Academy. We can avoid the inevitable Iwa and Suna assassins by giving him his mother's surname, and it will ring true with any who know or suspect of his parentage. Then we can wash our hands of this problem."

"That's ridiculous, and you know it."

"Do you have a better solution?"

"No... no, I don't. Very well, I will make the necessary arrangements, but I'm chaining you to a desk for this!"

"Too late," Hiruzen Sarutobi muttered. He stood up, tilted his hat to Naruto, and left. Naruto yawned sleepily and squirmed a bit more in Danzo's arms. The elderly ninja sighed and stood up, still holding Minato's son. His body was frail and decrepit, but his mind was as sharp as it was at sixteen.

_'Let me see, who can I set up as Naruto's guardian? Somebody with discretion, somebody who will raise him as, foremost, a loyal ninja of Konoha.'_

Somebody like _him_.

He only hoped that everything could be saved, and that the poor, innocent jinchuriki of the nine-tailed fox wouldn't be caught in the crossfire.


	3. Triple Enigmas

"Naruto is a strange one, certainly. What do I say about him that you don't already know? All right, if I had to guess, I'd say that the civilians in Konoha largely define his personality. The ninja are neutral, mostly, but almost everything he says and everything he does could be traced to something someone said to him, if you knew what you were looking for. His pranks, his thing for ramen, his crush on that girl he goes to the academy with… it's all part of what he's been told. I'm assuming that a core part of him is his defiance, or he'd be a headcase already. What? Yeah, I know who he is, and it doesn't bother me. I like to think my old sensei beat some common sense into me."

* * *

**The Elder Son**

_Triple Enigmas_

* * *

Heart pounding, breathing ragged, Naruto Uzumaki laughed like a only a fugitive can and pushed himself faster, bounding from one roof to the next with intent to evade capture by a superior force with knowledge of his modus operandi. In other words, he was running from Mizuki. Again. It was six in the morning, and already the chunin assigned to be his guardian was chasing him through Konoha with his hair dyed pink and a pair of underwear glued to the back of his head. They were panties, actually, and they were pink too. Mizuki had no idea where Naruto got them from, but he has a suspicion…

"You little brat!" he shouted, eyes fixed on Naruto as he chased the annoying kid down the line of apartment buildings and shops. "Tsubaki is gonna' tear me a new one for this!" A windmill shuriken as large as Naruto was tall whizzed past him, and the blond jinchuriki squealed as he bent awkwardly at the waist to dodge the weapon. It shot past, rolled on the ground, and sank two inches into the support beam of a supply store. Mizuki growled angrily and rushed forward, intent on ripping his weapon from the building and going after Naruto again, but the Uzumaki was gone by the time he got back.

"Damn it," he groaned, tugging fruitlessly on the panties in his hair. "How am I supposed to explain this to Iruka if I can't get my girlfriend's panties out of my hair?"

"You should probably invest in a hat," called out a sympathetic passing civilian. Mizuki frowned, thinking, then shrugged. "That'll do. Hat now, I can get Naruto at the Academy."

XXX

It took twenty minutes before Naruto finally felt safe enough to lower his guard. The tarp fell, pooling around his ankles as he let go of his death grip on the edge and released the tense position of his body that allowed him to conceal his body against a brick wall. He heaved a sigh, composed himself, and promptly burst into laughter. Whatever Mizuki would do to with him later, it was _worth_ it! The guy looked like a boy version of Sakura. Oh, and that girl who came into his room at two in the morning was 'Tsubaki'… Interesting, but only if he could find out where she lived and lead Mizuki there.

"Who are you?" asked a bland, emotionless voice, and Naruto flinched. How had a kid his age had managed to sneak up on him? More importantly, why was he threatening to kill him? The boy was taller than him, with black hair and a downsized version of the regular ANBU uniform. The kunai at Naruto's throat never wavered.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I-!" Naruto shouted, only to be silenced by the strange boy jabbing his knife into his throat. Reluctantly, he fell silent. "How did you enter this building, Naruto?" the boy asked, and Naruto pointed mutely at the open window. A small breeze blew in, fluttering the curtain, and the boy sweatdropped. "That is a reasonable answer," he reasoned to himself.

"Where _is_ this, anyways?" Naruto asked, pushing the kunai away from his throat with one finger. "Kinda creepy, if you ask me."

"My room," the boy answered, dropping his hand and sheathing the knife with practiced skill. There was a futon in the corner, a rack of weapons against the far wall, and a clock hung over the door. The walls weren't even painted. The intruding ninja-to-be felt a brief pang of sadness, which was quickly overwhelmed by complete indifference. "You should get some wallpaper," Naruto commented, dancing backward as the boy slashed at him. The motion lacked any venom.

"You should leave," said the boy (was it a girl? Naruto had no clue, mostly because his voice was high and his style was unisex). "If Danzo finds you here, you'll-" He froze, all of his muscles, bunching painfully and his tongue going limp. A trio of black lines snaked over his body, and a dark veil fell over his eyes as he keeled over, motionless. Naruto stared at him for a few seconds as he lay still, convulsing every once in a while, then quietly slipped away and out of the ANBU headquarters.

XXX

"Hey Mizuki, you-BWAHAHAHA!" Iruka roared, slapping his friend of twelve years heartily on the shoulder. The elder chunin took it with as much grace as could be expected, but eventually the laughing wore down his nerves to the point that he slugged Iruka in the stomach. Being ninja, the blow didn't really mean anything, but after that he tried his best to stifle the laughter.

"Man, you look like that kid in your class, but even girlier!" Iruka howled, and promptly slapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, sorry."

"Whatever," the chunin of perpetually unusual hair grumbled, anxiously fixing the tight latex forehead protector he'd bought with the last couple ryo in his pocket that morning. Needless to say, it was both ugly and cheap, but somehow more dignified than homosexual hair. "Yuk it up, the brat will get you too. See who's laughing then."

"Oh, you mean the demon did this to you?" Iruka whispered, feigning shock. "Oh dear, it seems you've gotta burn your hair now, or the foul thing's stench will seep into your brain! See if Tsubaki likes you then!"

"Don't bring her into this!" Mizuki shouted, kicking Iruka in the ankle. The other shinobi stumbled into a wooden fence, and he allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction.

"Jeez, what's got you all wound up this morning? It ain't the kid, he's done worse, so it must be…"

"Must be?"

"Ha! You got laid, didn't you! Woo hoo, Mizuki shoots, Mizuki scores!" Iruka pantomimed throwing a basketball at an imaginary hoop, which was countered by an imaginary kunai between the eyes.

"Damn, I wish I could get a piece of that," the younger of the two moaned, and Mizuki finally slapped his hand over the man's mouth.

"You idiot," he hissed, "there are children here!"

"Muh-buh-pabn-blee-blang-lang-klang-pleh- ptaah!" Iruka spat. "I _said_, you have her panties hanging out the back of your hat-thing. They're pink and they look like they belong to a twelve-year-old."

Mizuki quickly stuffed Tsubaki's underwear back into his impromptu headgear, glanced at the clock, and shot his partner the finger. Iruka waved cheerily and bounced off to his Academy class. Grudgingly, Mizuki did the same. The gales of childish laughter that greeted him at the door told him that his hair was still showing.

XXX

She was still a mystery in his book. Naruto was no slouch at coming in late to the Academy, so he knew plenty of things that other students didn't about them. Shikamaru was late because he liked watching clouds, and occasionally just stopped walking and did nothing for minutes on end, until his mother left the house and gently pushed him onward. Kiba was late because he was disorganized and his older sister would chat his ear off when she got the chance. Sakura was always at the student training grounds exactly two minutes and twenty seconds before class started, only to have Ino drag her off to places Naruto never got around to finding. Sasuke spent as much time as possible after his parents left to scour Konoha for his brother. And tomatoes, Naruto found out. And Sakura. He wondered briefly if that was where she and Ino went off to every week.

The riddle was Hinata. Hinata Hyuga was the epitome of average in every class, talked in a stuttering near-whisper when she talked at all, and sat in a far corner of the class. Had he not actively been studying her unusual behavior in preparation for this day, Naruto would never have realized that she was borderline frosty to everyone except him. Her blank white eyes contorted in rage when Academy students tried to speak to her, and teachers only received marginally better treatment. After a few months of the rage treatment when they were all seven or so, even the outgoing girls abandoned her. Naruto knew that she lived with a brown-haired kunoichi with Inuzuka tattoos by the edge of Konoha's residential zone, had a bloodline limit that made her look blind, and spent most of her free time punching training dummies.

But why was she late all the time? Naruto ran across the roofs of the buildings below, avoiding criticism from angry civilians and concerned shinobi alike. A few minutes later, just before ninja training began, he halted on the roof of her apartment building and waited.

Shortly, the front door of the building opened and out stepped Hinata's guardian, followed closely by a man whose face was covered by a mask. He was to high to hear their animated conversation, though they both wore headbands. Naruto waited patiently for them both to pass, then watched as Hinata slipped out the front door and into the streets. To his delight, she turned left at a corner that lead directly away from the Academy, a sign that today was an off day for her. Mentally cackling, he followed the pale-eyed girl as she walked across Konoha, a journey of about half an hour. When a wall clock hanging in front of a café reached eight, Naruto winced. Iruka was much more reasonable before he had to do the paperwork for lateness. Well, he and Hinata could take the hit together.

She walked a little more, until Naruto was absolutely certain that there was only one place they could be going. Past a few more buildings, and the old Hyuga district loomed low in the sky, the imposing mansion of the Main House reaching for the clouds. A window on the ground floor was broken.

Hinata reached the wrought-iron gates and withdrew a key. She stopped for a moment, then apparently thought better of it and simply scaled the barrier, a feat that her follower copied a few minutes later. She used the key to enter the mansion, however, forcing Naruto to use the broken window. As the Uzumaki tumbled into the massive building, what hit him first was the stench. The halls reeked of sulfur and decay, rot easily visible in giant patches across wooden surfaces. Doors hung off hinges, slash marks marred the walls, and the floor was mulched into fine sawdust in some places.

Despite this, it was easy to see why Hinata might like coming here every once in a while. High arches graced the ceilings, the walls were decorated with intricate artwork, and windows were massive enough to allow titanic rays from the rising sun to filter through the particles of dust, lending the mansion a peaceful atmosphere. Naruto inhaled, watching the motes of dirt swirl in his breath.

Hinata walked into a small room sequestered near the back of the building, its door only marked by a stylized triskelion superimposed over a Konoha leaf emblem. He waited, and she came back out with a stuffed animal of some kind with her, age having marred its features into an unrecognizable blob of juvenile affection.

He could feel the tension building in his blood, swishing in his veins. Hinata's footsteps were slowing, her body going rigid as she walked purposefully back to the main foyer of the house. Naruto followed eagerly.

She stopped in front of a wall, which he assumed was at one point pure white and unmarred. Now, an ugly ruddy brown stain splashed across its surface in a jagged semicircle, splattered by a cosmic painter's careless brush. A tanto was buried to the hilt in the floor, its wooden handle cracked and just barely clinging to the blade it was attached to. But the most stunning feature of the area was the two-meter-long swastika carved into the wallpaper, each stroke precise and immutable.

Hinata sank to her knees, clutching her childhood stuffed animal all the harder. A faint whimper echoed through the house, and Naruto took an unconscious step back. Privacy wasn't a concern that registered with the blond boy, but a part of him screamed that he had just crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

Suddenly, Hinata's head shot up, the veins in her temples bulging unnaturally. Her eyes swiveled uncannily in their sockets to face Naruto directly, and the shocked whisper, "Naruto?" drifted towards him. A blind panic overcame him, and the orange-clad ninja turned and fled, pushing himself harder than he'd been forced to before.

XXX

Sasuke looked both ways, eyeing the boys around him in what passed for a ninja schoolyard, ensuring that none were looking his way. Before the bell sounded, he made his way lazily with his classmates for a while, careful to remain near the back of the crowd. With a sudden burst of speed, the Uchiha flickered away from the school to a nearby building, waited patiently for the chunin guards to stop searching for reticent, unwilling scions of prominent clans hiding from the rigorous, painful regime of ninja training. Not that he was unhappy with his career being chosen for him (big-brother-Itachi was _so_ cool!) by his father. But sometimes...

Sometimes being a ninja was hard. It put a great mental strain on those who practiced the art, having to carry on normal lives while donning armour and killing men. Psychopaths did well in the job, as did the extremely altruistic, but other had to develop coping mechanisms. Some went mad, lost their minds and their morals. Gambling, drinking, promiscuity, narcotics, daredevil behaviour, heightened devotion, fragmented psyches... therapists in Konohagakure were extremely well paid and in hi demand. Some clans even had private psychiatrists, the Uchiha in particular. Something about the development of the Sharingan required traumatic circumstances to the ninja in question.

A long time ago, Itachi confided that he relieved himself by watching children's television. Sasuke had laughed at him, but Itachi had simply frowned. "Don't be so quick to find it funny," the Uchiha heir had scolded, "because one day, it'll be you."

Oh, how right he was. Sasuke hadn't even killed a man yet, but the agonizing process of mock-fighting for his life, kicking children as young as he was into bloody messes under the watchful eyes of the ruthless Iruka Umino, defending himself from the same, and Sasuke had a panic attack at age seven.

He found his happy place in a small grassy area near Training Ground 214, a little-used and little-serviced area in the countryside of the Land of Fire. Ten minutes or so a day, and he could handle murdering puppies with his bare hands.

As he arrived, Sakura looked out from the daisy chain that she was presently tearing into tiny pieces and throwing into the wind. "Hey, Sasuke," she called out, and promptly ignored him thereafter. Ino was probably somewhere else, then.

That was all right, he supposed. He could wait for her. There was still time.

XXX

Tsubaki was mildly concerned when she got home without her panties or bra under her clothes, and was disappointed to realize that she couldn't remember how she'd gotten there or what had happened last night. There was alcohol involved, she remembered, and large quantities of air that smelled like testosterone, frequent at establishments that catered to shinobi. Nevertheless, she set out to find her missing underwear and possibly meet the man who'd taken her virginity (not that she planned to admit it). Hopefully Mizuki wouldn't be too pissed.

A simple tracking technique revealed the personal items to be close enough together to retrieve without much difficulty, but why were they at the Ninja Academy? Tsubaki put off writing a long-overdue report that morning (citing hangover) to walk there, feeling distinctly naked and uncomfortable.

That feeling was enhanced by her complete and utter shock at seeing her bra flying at the top of a flagpole wrapped in razor wire and chakra-sensitive exploding tags.

Twelve lacerations, two third-degree burns and a major dose of embarrassment later, the dark-haired chuniha had retrieved her bra and was thoroughly on the warpath. Now, the classroom on the far left of the building at head height, eh? With her luck her panties probably where some class full of snot-nosed kids could see them...

* * *

**Hopefully I portrayed everyone right, but let me know if I messed up catastrophically. My goal with this story is to finish, so hopefully that happens as well.**


	4. Sealed Scroll of Seal Sealing

Naruto tried his best, he really did. A long time ago he'd accepted that his chakra control was terrible and at best could become mediocre if he really dedicated himself to it. That was okay by him, because he had enough chakra to rival the powerhouses in his class and an unpredictable style that leveled the playing field no matter who he was fighting. But sadly, all ninja ranks save special jonin required a relatively even balance of ninjutsu, genjutsu and taijutsu, and Naruto was seriously lacking in one of those categories. Three guesses as to which.

* * *

**The Elder Son**

_Sealed Scroll of Seal Sealing_

* * *

"What do you mean, I don't pass? I did all the techniques perfectly!" Naruto complained. Iruka let out a long-suffering sigh and answered, "Because, you good-for-nothing delinquent, your clones are weak and ineffectual, and your transformation is pathetically transparent. You wouldn't last thirty seconds on a battlefield."

Naruto slumped over, resting his head in his hands. "Damnit, why can I never do that stupid clone technique right? There's just too much chakra to do it right!"

"I could maybe help you, if you'd like?" Sakura offered from the front row, looking uncharacteristically shy.

"Shuddup," hissed the ex-ninja trainee. "Why didn't you offer, oh, I dunno, _two weeks ago_?"

_'I did,'_ thought both her and Hinata, who hadn't really, but wanted to feel better about herself.

"Get out, Naruto," Iruka sighed. "The Hokage wants to see you again, after what happened to the boy's washroom the other day."

"Kay," the boy grunted. "Jeez, you just don't have a sense of humor." He departed the classroom with his hands shoved in his pockets and a scowl on his face, stormed across Konoha in a huff, and entered the Hokage Tower, which Naruto was disappointed to see was no longer painted pink. The secretary on the ground floor spared him a withering glance, and jerked his thumb at the Sandaime's office.

He entered, and Sarutobi was waiting for him. The elderly ninja did nothing for a little while, allowing Naruto to stew in his own emotions, then finally released a sigh like the world had come to rest on his shoulders. "Naruto," he muttered, as much to himself as to the boy, "what am I supposed to do with you?"

"Let me outta the ninja training program?" Naruto suggested hopefully. It wasn't _his_ fault that chakra, kunai, sparring… heck, pretty much everything to do with being a ninja made him skittish. He excelled regardless, but the real enthusiasm came from Shino and his ilk, and the handful of outsiders determined to show that their civilian origins couldn't hold them back. Naruto… he knew he could be great, but something in him instinctively shied away from violence.

"You know that I cannot allow you to do that," Sarutobi informed him. "This is a hidden village, wards of the state are expected to make their best effort in the ninja Academy, unless they are clearly unable to do so. _You_ are just the opposite, yet you seem determined to fail at every possible milestone. I don't suppose you'd care to explain?"

What was he supposed to say? _'There's a voice in my head, only it's not really a voice, and it dies a little inside every time I see Sasuke and Hinata spar, or Kiba kick that puppy that follows him everywhere, or Shikamaru knock kunai into posts like it's nothing. Like they're really killing each other.'_ That would go over _so_ well. Naruto shrugged noncommittally, the same he did at the end of every semester.

"I see," said the Hokage. "Well, in that case, I am assigning Umino to help repair your lagging skills in that area. I will also be speaking to your caretaker about curtailing your habitual disrespect for authority and othe-"

The door to the office burst open, revealing a red-faced, furious Tsubaki. With no warning or threat she lunged forward, grabbed the startled Naruto by the throat and throttled him. "Brat!" she hissed, her shadow swirling angrily on the floor, "I should kill you. Right here, right now, yeah? You need to die for embarrassing Mizuki in front of all those kids by- by doing _that_!"

"Glllmp!" he replied, clawing at her hands wrapped around his throat. Tsubaki's shadow jumped off the floor and attempted to join its master in killing Naruto. With a flick of his hands Sarutobi separated the two into opposite corners of the room, setting himself in the centre. Naruto drew a heavy breath, colour draining from his cheeks, and Tsubaki fumed quietly.

"Miss Nara," the Hokage asked cordially, "why have you broken into my office to assault your boyfriend's charge?" Naruto suddenly went very still, the thought _'Mizuki's girlfriend?'_ finally registering in the events of the past six hours. Suddenly, he felt less offended by Tsubaki's lethal attention.

"This little prick glued my panties to Mizuki's head!" she growled. Sarutobi choked, which he quickly turned into a coughing fit to mask his mirth. Even Kage-level ninja feared the wrath of a kunoichi.

"H-help me!" the blond boy squeaked, and tried to jump out the rather large window behind the tatami mat. Tsubaki's shadow jumped out and froze him midair, causing Naruto to slam awkwardly against the wall and fall to the floor, doing an admirable impression of a corpse. The angered woman jerked her head savagely to the left, and Naruto copied. Unfortunately for him, there was a wall in his way, and stars burst across his eyes as his head recoiled from the blow.

Sarutobi frowned. "Release him," he said shortly, and Tsubaki grudgingly complied. Immediately, Naruto jumped from the twelfth story of the tower, parkour tumbled to a lower roof, and vanished in Konoha.

Tsubaki unclenched her fists and sat down heavily in a chair. "Where can I get some industrial solvent?" she asked, and her Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Mizuki is in a closet at the Academy, and his lunch break ends in ten."

XXX

Naruto stumbled through Konoha with a raging headache, surrounded by people who had unprecedented levels of apathy towards him. He made his way back to the large apartment he shared with Mizuki, devoured a cup of ramen, and settled in front of the television for a few bleary hours. When the pink haired man got home three hours later, he no longer had a pair of soiled undergarments stuck to his scalp, and was marginally more sympathetic to the hellion on he couch.

"Oi, kid," he called out, and Naruto bent his head to one side quizzically. "Iruka's waiting for you at the student training ground. Get on with it, or I'll tell Teuchi to charge you triple for every bowl of that foul stuff you ever eat again."

"Go 'way, bastard," Naruto mumbled, and Mizuki's good humor vanished like water on a campfire. He buried one hand in Naruto's hair, yanked him out of the couch, and held him up at eye level with one hand. "Listen, punk, you got me in some shit with the Hokage and my boss, and I might lose my girlfriend 'cause of that stupid prank, so-"

"Oh yeah, that's right!" Naruto recalled. "That Nara chick _is_ your girlfriend. Did she get her panties back?" That represented the end of Mizuki's rather short temper, and the man promptly hauled Naruto to the front door and drop-kicked him into the hallway.

Naruto tried the door, but it was locked and he had neither a key nor the skills to open it. "Screw you too!" he shouted, and kicked the door childishly. Mizuki didn't hear it, possibly because he was drowning his sorrows in ice cream, so Naruto finally put himself in order and reported to Iruka.

The younger chunin was strangely… happy? A rictus smile stretched across his face, and he waved as Naruto approached, instantly putting the kid on guard.

"I've been reviewing your test scores," Iruka said casually. "They're surprisingly high, for someone who puts so little effort into his work."

Bullshit, but he wasn't about to call him on it. "Uh-huh."

"So I've come up with a way for you to redeem your earlier work today and pass you into a genin team."

"Does this have anything to do with the fact that you're one person short, and I have the best passing chance of the rest of the students?" Naruto guessed, and Iruka shrugged.

"Plausible deniability. Now, the first part is easy. We'll be using Tsubaki here…"

The dark haired woman stepped out, a similar malicious gleam in her eyes, and Naruto gulped. "We need to be sure that you _can_ run twenty kilometers, without collapsing in exhaustion or doing irreparable harm to yourself." Iruka paused. "Obviously you won't apply yourself without motivation, so Tsubaki has agreed to _help_ you."

Without warning, Tsubaki's shadow ensnared his, and with a barely comprehensible snarl of "Shadow Imitation Technique!" Naruto was ensnared by her movements. It was a little disconcerting to feel his breathing out of sync with his heartbeat, trapped in a deeper cycle belonging to someone much older and fitter.

"If you're still awake when you're done, we'll move on then," Iruka said pleasantly, and Tsubaki gave a jaunty wave with both bodies before starting off.

_'This is going to suck.'_

XXX

Suck it did, for Naruto was barely able to stay standing when Tsubaki finally finished torturing him and released the jutsu. Iruka bid her a good night, and then it was just the two of them.

"You pass!" he exclaimed, and Naruto dredged up the energy to flip his sensei off. A flicker of anger passed over him, red and shining, and then the chunin wrestled it under control and he smiled. "Excellent, now that you're all warmed up we can move on to the important bit." He sat on the ground, and Naruto allowed himself to sit haphazardly in front of him.

Despite his initial reluctance, Naruto was enticed by the possibility of actually passing for once, and leaned in expectantly. Iruka was unreadable, other than his current jovial demeanor, but he could almost detect a trace of anticipation in his expression.

"There is a training course in the basement of the Hokage tower," said Iruka. "Essentially, it is a combination of traps, pitfalls, a labyrinth, and general security measures. It has two guards, both of whom have ANBU-level detection training, and they know the layout of the course by memory. At the centre is a chest, and in that chest is a scroll. To pass, you start in the lobby of the tower, take the scroll, and return to me with it."

"That…" Naruto thought aloud, "… doesn't sound exactly like the tests we've done before."

"Well," Iruka replied, unconsciously slipping into 'teacher-mode', "before shinobi first used chakra and became the dominant mercenary force in 540 B.C.E., military regiments were composed mainly of samurai while ninja and kunoichi worked as spies for the Daimyo. The course used to be for training in stealth, reconnaissance, and assassination, but completing it will technically grade you into a genin."

"Huh."

_ 'Seems legit.'_

Iruka clapped his hands and stood up, Naruto following suit. "You have nine hours to prepare and execute the task, which means that the scroll must be out of the tower by three in the morning. Rest up, kid." With that, he vanished in the irritating cloud of smoke that all ninja except him seemed to know how to create.

"Damn," Naruto muttered, and promptly passed out from exhaustion.

XXX

When he awoke almost five hours later, it was eleven at night and time was short. A quick checklist ran through Naruto's head, listing off the thing's he needed to infiltrate an unknown location. Fortunately, he'd brought all of them with him to the run'o'doom.

He walked into the lobby of the Hokage Tower, turned left towards the washrooms, and walked off into the darkened hallways of the ground floor. The stairwell to the basement was well lit and within his limits, so Naruto gave himself until the very beginning of the room marked 'Sealing Scroll' to hide from the guards. Naruto couldn't sense their chakra nor hear them through the walls, so he instead forced his own chakra down as far as possible and quietly tiptoed into the training course.

Almost instantly a guillotine blade fell from the ceiling, triggered by the door opening without the key being used (why did he think it would be unlocked?) and Naruto cursed to himself as he dodged back from the falling edge.

A little later he found himself facing a dead end. He turned around to retrace his steps, but the walls of the maze had shifted into a new configuration while his back was turned, and the exit was now to his left. Shrugging, he went the only way he could, but a sinking feeling told him he was screwed.

It was child's play to distract both guards with the tried-and-true stone trick, only with discarded shuriken. Naruto wasn't the best shot anyways, so the clattering metal was an excellent diversion for first one, then the other ANBU ninja at the core of the maze. As soon as they left the maze restructured itself, giving the blond thief anywhere from ten minutes to ten seconds to steal the scroll. He darted forward, tested the chest for traps (none) and threw it open.

He swore heavily. The scroll was almost as big as he was; how the hell was he supposed to get it out of the tower? Smashing the chest shut again, Naruto ran from the centre of the maze and purposefully turned his back on every fork in the path he came across, hopefully further confusing the guards. Twelve traps and twenty minutes later he came to the metal door marking the exit, a metal blade still buried in the floor. Giddily, he turned the doorknob… which was locked.

In a fit of rage, Naruto tore the knob off, and, heedless of the guards behind him, screamed in frustration. For the next thirty seconds he smashed recklessly against the metal and concrete with the fury of a denied child, and was only stopped by the senbon covered in sedative that was thrust into his neck from behind.

XXX

"Milord, this is a most unusual set of circumstances," Orochimaru said, his tone directed towards the Hokage but his eyes on the monitors behind him depicting the halls of Torture and Interrogation. "I opt that we withhold drastic measure against Uzumaki."

"We will delay that matter for now," Sarutobi said. "What of the turncoat Umino?"

"He was captured in the Nara forest two hours ago. He appeared to be in a state of severe psychosis, as he made no attempt to resist arrest and only recently divulged any information to Morino."

"What were his motives in this scheme?"

"He was only able to reveal that the scroll was eventually destined for a spy within Konoha before he was overtaken by madness again. Morino informed me that he suspects that the condition was induced by this unknown spy, but as of yet was unable to reverse it through conventional means."

"Damn," the Hokage cursed. "What enemies without Konoha could have such a network in place that not even we could detect it?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Orochimaru replied, "but I have a more pressing matter to bring to your attention."

"Is this about the Uzumaki?"

"Indeed. Anko has requested that he be passed for exemplary demonstration of required shinobi technique and knowledge, and would count it as a personal favour if he were placed on her genin squad."

Sarutobi eyed him skeptically. "I was not aware that Mitarashi was cleared to lead a genin team."

"She was, on condition that I-"

"Never mind. Officially, that will be our excuse to pass him."

Orochimaru chuckled darkly. "I take it you needed one?"

"Indeed. I have wanted that pest out of the training program for quite some time now, ever since it appeared that he had not inherited his father's prodigious skills. Nevertheless, I'm sure he'll make a fine ninja."

"You don't know that. I was rather hoping you would have some common sense and basic respect for authority drummed into him by… anyone, really."

The Hokage stood from his chair. "It is late. I am going to my home, as should you. Naruto Uzumaki has passed in the eyes of Konohagakure, which Mizuki will inform him of in the morning. I expect Mitarashi will do her utmost to shape Team Seven into true ninja, provided that not all of them are as unreliable as Uzumaki."

_'You bastard,'_ Orochimaru thought, but nevertheless he bowed and dismissed himself. As he left the Hokage Tower, he passed Naruto in a cell on the second floor. He spared the boy a second of pity, then left again. He had to check on Kushina again.

XXX

"And so, it is with great pleasure that I give you this," Mizuki said, holding up the signature headband of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, "to mark your status as a ninja genin of Konoha."

"Woohoo!" Naruto shouted, snatching the green length of cloth and fastening it around his head. "I always knew I could do it! I have a forehead protector of my own, finally!"

"You've stolen mine enough times," Mizuki muttered. "All right, what'd ya say we go to Ichiraku, my treat?" He shouldn't have asked, because with a shout of boy Naruto was running out the door, lavishing praises on the pink haired man.

"Hey," he said softly, "you can stop hiding now."

Rolling her eyes, Tsubaki Nara came out from behind the curtainsin her boyfriend's living room. "That kid," she muttered, "more trouble than he's worth. Why did you ever agree to take him?"

"He was pretty cute as a baby," he told her, "we used to play with him, dress him up as a fox and watch him crawl over maps of Konoha. Maybe that was in bad taste."

"Damn straight it was," she replied. "But without him, I wouldn't have met you."

"In a roundabout way, I suppose," Mizuki said with a grin. "So, you gonna forgive him for the underwear thing?"

"Oh, maybe," Tsubaki said airily. "It wasn't too bad. Besides, you _do_ look cute with that hair colour. Want me to do your nails?"

It was a long time before Mizuki showed up to pay for the dozens of ramen Naruto had put on his tab, and he looked distinctly disheveled, yet dazedly content.

XXX

**I retconned Sakura's character a bit, and introduced a bit more plot substance and the like. Tsubaki is a minor character from only one or two Naruto episodes, so her clan is never covered. I thought her appearance suggested 'Nara', and it gave me a beginning skill set. Naruto obviously lacks a Shadow Clone Technique, because that hardly reflects the theme of this story. My alternative will hopefully be equally awesome. Now, for something completely different!**


	5. Unusually Serpentine Shinobi

"Let me see... Choji Akamichi, Shikamaru Nara and Ino Yamanaka... Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka and Sasuke Uchiha... and Sakura Haruno, Hinata Hyuga and Naruto Uzumaki. Those are your designated genin cells until you become chunin, so do try to make the best of it and not make your teammates' lives miserable. Yes, that means you Ino. No, Sasuke, we aren't making any alterations. _Yes_, Naruto passed! SO DID SASUKE! Are there any more stupid questions? _Kiba, stop biting Shino_!"

* * *

**The Elder Son**

_Unusually Serpentine Shinobi_

* * *

"Why did our sensei want to meet us here?" Sakura wondered, plucking a kunai from a wooden board hanging from a wall and returning to her seat. She lined up another shot and threw again, the metal tip burying itself in the painted bullseye for the umpteenth time.

She, Hinata and Naruto were in what the directions called an underused storage unit, but was essentially a creepy old warehouse with a massive glass skylight and an inch of dust on every available surface. Hinata arrived very early stanch us far remained obstinately standing. It was uncanny how she remained aware of everything without so much as turning her head. Sakura and Naruto had sat down on old crates, and were idly chatting.

"Hey, how did you manage to do the clone technique after all?" the girl asked.

"I didn't," Naruto admitted sheepishly. "Iruka set me up with a different test on Thursday. It was more practical than theory, and I didn't actually have to use any jutsu to pass. The Hokage gave me the O.K. though, so it's all good!"

"That's not entirely true," Hinata interjected pleasantly, surprising both of them.

"How do _you_ know?" Naruto asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

"You exhibit several of the outward signs of lying: elevated heartbeat, dilated pupils, overactive sweat glands, your arms are crossed-"

"Hinata," Sakura said warily, "he wants to know how you know that when you aren't even looking at us."

"I can see everything," the Hyuga said, completely serious. She was still facing the gigantic loading bay that they came in through, no doubt awaiting their anonymous jonin instructor.

"Huh," said Naruto. "Y'know, I always kinda thought you were blind. Are you using, uh, eko-loh—that ear thingie?"

"You are wearing briefs, which are bright blue. Sakura has a half-moon shaped scar on her left buttock."

Simultaneously, both of them pulled their waistbands out and looked at themselves. True enough, Naruto's underwear was blue and Sakura had a scar high on her left leg. The conversation ended there, as Naruto was busy trying to remember whether he locked the door that morning, and Sakura was reconciling herself with the fact that she had a massive burn scar on her butt that she was previously unaware of.

"Our sensei will be here in twelve seconds," said Hinata, and all of them swivelled to look at the door. It was logical, and yet only Hinata was prepared for when the skylight burst into a thousand shards as something burst through it. Sakura tackled Naruto off the crate and under a nearby set of wooden boards, while Hinata uncannily avoided the larger slivers of glass, the tinier pieces lodging in her thick sweater and skirt.

A large, dark object fell from the ceiling to the floor, landing without making any noise whatsoever. It rose from the ground, revealing itself to be... The most scantily clad woman Naruto had ever seen. She wore knee-high boots, a skirt that could have passed as a really wide belt, and a chainmail vest underneath a kunoichi duster. Her hair was tied back into a frazzled braid, and overall she looked like an overcaffeinated ninja-squirrel. Promptly after drawing that analogy, Naruto was forced to stuff his fist in his mouth to hold back laughter.

"What's up!" the ninja-squirrel roared. "I am _*cough*oneof*cough*_ your BRAND-NEW JONIN-SENSEI! ARE YOU READY TO BE NINJA AND DO NINJA STUFF?"

"You... really didn't rehearse that, did you?" Sakura sweatdropped. The crazy lady shrugged, as if to say 'rehearse? I don't have time to make myself look presentable or nothin'.'

"AWESOME!" Naruto shouted, throwing Sakura halfway across the warehouse and bouncing to his feet. The kunoichi bounced past Hinata and slid away into the darkness.

"I KNOW, I AM AWESOME!" (one of) their new sensei shouted. "IT'S TOO BAD MIGHT GUY ISN'T HERE OR THERE WOULD BE **TOO MUCH AWESOME**!"

"OHMYGOD, I- wait, what happened to Sakura?" Naruto interrupted himself, rubbernecking to scan the entire warehouse in only a few seconds. "Helloooo? Sakura?"

"I am going to buy earplugs," Hinata said flatly. "Certainly they cannot possibly interfere with my ability to hear you two."

"I'm fine," wafted back to their group from... somewhere, presumably Sakura assuring them that she was fine and just recovering from a first-degree Naruto.

"Well," said the lady, "in that case, why don't we introduce ourselves? Feel free to add anything you'd like, just so we all get to know each other. I'll go first." Naruto and Hinata leaned in expectantly. "I am Anko Mitarashi," said Anko Mitarashi, "and I specialize in close-range fighting, the fighting style of my sensei, and killing people violently. I like fighting, drinking, eating dango, and... uh... never mind..." She seemed pensive for a second, but then her grin recovered and she rounded on Naruto. "Speak up, blondie!"

"I'm Naruto!" he shouted, and Hinata winced again. "Some day, I'mma be the Greatest Hokage _Ever_! I like Sakura and, er, ramen, and I don't like Iruka and all those people who think I'm evil. But I'm the future Hokage, who's gonna be laughing then?"

_'Well,'_ thought Anko, _'that's something you don't hear every day.'_

"I am Hinata Hyuga." That was all she had to say.

Sakura drifted back to their little ground, rubbing her side and picking splinters out of her left arm. "I'm Sakura Haruno," she introduced herself. "I like fighting people who are better than me, learning things, and Naruto, I suppose. Some day, I want to be like the Shodai Hokage."

"A politician? A master of genjutsu? Hokage?" Anko guessed.

"Err, I meant the whole 'killing demons' bit, but that works too," Sakura confessed. "It'll be hard to be Hokage if Naruto already has dibs on it."

Their instructor roared with laughter, subtly dropping her guard for the first time in their presence. "Wow," she gasped, "you guys are gonna' be a handful, I just know it. Now that we're all set, there's one last thing to get out of the way before we can move on to the ass-kicking."

_'Seriously?'_

"There's a genin test," Anko said, her tone absolutely serious, "which I will use to determine your skills as ninja in general. If you pass, congratulations! You're on Team Awesome! If you fail, obviously you get sent back to the Academy to get your stuff right, or whatever the hell kids do in the Academy. I dunno. The message here, if you didn't get it, is PASS THE TEST!"

"Okay..."

"Yes, ma'am."

"WHAT!? I got here by the skin of my teeth and you wanna send me back?"

"Shuddit, brat! Now, here's the test." She cleared her throat. "You have to find your other sensei. Yeah, I gotta share you, but them's the breaks, eh? Uh, I'm s'posed to tell you a few people who it could be, and most of 'em would be in on the test, but I honestly have no idea who the other person is. So, uh, if you figure it out you're a better ninja than I am, I guess."

"I- When we were graduating, I was chanting in my head," Sakura broke in, "like, 'not Kakashi, not Kakashi, not Kakashi', or something like that. The way this is going, we're probably getting you _and_ Kakashi, so the moral of the story is that hell is still stalking me."

"Hardly," Hinata stated. "If one judges 'hell' by the depth of one's prior suffering, you have seen very little of hell."

"Case in point," reiterated the kunoichi. "I have two nutcases on my team, three if you count Naruto and maybe four, depending on our new teacher."

"You're no fun," Anko pouted. "Being cracked is the mark of a good ninja, didn't you know?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "When did I say I was sane?" she asked caustically.

"As much fun as it's been chatting, you have until noon tomorrow to tell me who your other-new-sensei is, so hurry up! I'm going to go finish my dinner." She gave them the address of her apartment, in one of the larger blocks for Konoha shinobi, and promptly left.

XXX

As with all good investigations, the parties involved split up thirty seconds after walking out the door. The sun was setting, so Sakura made the snap decision to visit the Hokage Tower first, while Hinata split off to go elsewhere. Naruto, original fellow that he was, trailed after Sakura like a lost puppy.

"Can we go out for ramen first?" he asked pathetically, and Sakura rolled her eyes. "You can eat later, when we aren't in imminent danger of _failing_!" she snapped, and Naruto drooped.

They marched up to the receptionist and asked her for the team listings for the newest batch of genin. He replied that, sadly, those record had been written up but weren't sorted as of yet, but they could check the filing room if they'd like?

Naruto threw the door open... and his smile dropped off as he surveyed the stacks of paper reaching from floor to ceiling in a disorganized Tower of Babel destined to drive the administrators mad. "Holy shit, we'll be here all day!" he shouted, and Sakura slapped him.

"Shut up," she hissed. "We have a choice. Either we dig through this pile of garbage for the next ten hours, look somewhere else, or split up and do both."

"Or we could wait for Hinata to figure it out?" he suggested, and she gave him a flat look. "Right, just checking."

_'At least I didn't get Sasuke.'_ Sakura counted her lucky stars that the fruitcake was on Team Eight. _'Then again, I hear Ms. Yuhi is rather normal...'_

"Split up it is," she muttered, shoving Naruto aside and wading into hip-deep red tape. "Go check on the woman's friends, Naruto. She mentioned Might Guy, that's start. Find out who her friends are, people on her old teams, that sort of thing. Kakashi is actually a possibility, so try him too. And ANBU probably- Naruto?" The jinchuriki was gone already.

XXX

Hinata arrived at her home with a goal in mind, and nothing was going to get in her way. Rin was on the couch, enjoying a late-night soap opera with her boyfriend cuddled up next to her. She turned the television off, flipped the lights on, and stood in her guardians' way for a full five seconds before either of them reacted.

"Maa, wha-"

"Are either of you instructors for Team Seven?" Her voice was cold, colder than usual.

"No, ya crazy kid."

"Ah, Hinata, could you maybe turn the television back on?" Rin asked politely.

"Who is Anko Mitarashi?" the Hyuga pressed, and both ninja rolled their eyes, instantly understanding the problem with the scarily accurate perception that only veteran shinobi could ever accrue.

"Go to ANBU Science Division, ask for Kushina," they chorused, following which was a (in Hinata's opinion) disgustingly domestic struggle over the remote that ended with a passionate snogging session that they hardly seemed interested in hiding from her (omniviewing) gaze. By then she'd left.

XXX

Might Guy was out on a mission with his genin cell, looking for a missing-nin, so instead Naruto asked about Anko Mitarashi. The receptionist supplied that she was a special jonin allied with Konoha, recently assigned a genin team, previously a genin under Orochimaru of the Sannin with some guy named Kabuto Yakushi and, suprisingly, Mizuki, none of whom had any formal training before Orochimaru registered them as ninja. Mizuki was working at the Academy, so the logical choice was Kabuto. He was informed that 'Dr. Yakushi works in ANBU Sci- now piss off, demon!'

Naruto was almost certain they were on the right track when he encountered Hinata going in the same direction. The Hyuga inclined her head politely, waiting for Naruto to open the doors to what any civilian would certainly call a hovel, but was actually the nerve centre of the collective Konoha intelligence agencies. Coincidentally, Naruto was born there as well, but nobody thought much of that. There was nobody there to meet them, though the Byakugan caught hundreds of masked ninja milling around like ants in a beehive. Eventually, Naruto took the blunt approach.

"Excuse me, Bear," he said, walking up to a random ANBU member, "do you know where I could find Kabuto Yakushi? I need to talk to him about-" Before he could finish, Bear was writing something on his left wrist. "If you wanna find someone," he rumbled, "normally you go through Shimura, the head of ANBU. But since you're here about _that_, I think you should talk to Orochimaru. Take the stairs down as far as you can go without a pass, and he'll be there... creepy bastard..." Bear wandered away, muttering to himself about reminding Danzo about a fox.

"Well, that was easy!" Naruto commented, and together they descended the stairs. As they passed the level for T&I containment, Hinata marvelled at the kind of credit a forehead protector gave even novices, which was soon dispelled by the rather vulgar thought, _'holy shit, I can't see through that door!'_

Naruto looked askance at his clairvoyant partner. "So, can you see him?"

"Of course."

Naruto reached out to knock, but the instant his knuckles touched the door a fiery pain ripped through his abdomen. He shouted, falling on the ground and tearing at his shirt like it was on fire. Startled, Hinata reached down to help him, but a wave of red force tore out of his chakra system (and with her Byakugan, it looked _terrifying_) and pushed her back. She fell against a wall, stunned.

Almost immediately, the door blasted open and a black-and-white blur blasted out, collected Naruto and Hinata, and moved at inhuman speeds for the stairwell. The further they got from the door, the tight pain loosened until Naruto could think rationally, and finally was back to normal, if a little frazzled. Hinata was silent, but that was hardly a change.

When he stopped, the other ninja's features became visible, and both of them gasped. They'd _heard_ of him, but meeting a legend in the flesh was always something else. Long black hair, pale white skin, yellow eyes and a drawn mouth... it could be none other than Orochimaru. He smiled at them, though the action came off as slightly creepy rather than reassuring.

"I... apologize," he said in a low whisper. His voice was quiet and scratchy, and he drew his vowels out. "It would be unwise for you to see the inside of that room, Uzumaki."

"You... know who I am?" Naruto squeaked.

"Certainly. I requested you for my genin team this year," the Sanin said humbly. "Perhaps we ought to go and reassure Anko that I have not eaten you."

"You- you're our teacher?" Hinata asked, just to be certain. "B-but, y-you're t-t-the-"

"I am impatient," replied Orochimaru, "now we should go."

The question of what had happened to him, and why Hinata had escaped unscathed remained in his mind, but Naruto found that there were too many things to wonder about for it to take any real priority in his mind. He and Hinata followed the mad scientist, wherever he was taking them, and something told him that it was an apt metaphor for the next few years.

XXX

Sakura burst into Anko's apartment with a smile on her face and a sheaf of legal paper in one hand, some of the files drifting out of her grip. "I figured it out!" she crowed, shaking the papers in the instructor's face vigorously. "It was filed under 'G' for Genin, only someone accidentally put Team Seven under 'H', and it took me a while to get to the bottom of the stack, and when I found it I couldn't believe it! Our other instructor is... is..."

Anko pointed mutely at Orochimaru, who was lounging on the kitchen table with an apple in his hand. He gave Sakura a flat look with his dull, blanched eyes, and the girl bravely fought the grey haze that surrounded her mind, creeping into her sight. It seemed that Naruto and Hinata had already succumbed, for both were sitting on the floor and staring blankly into space. Their self-proclaimed 'awesome sensei' was holding up rather well, but an instant of observation showed that she was no match for her old mentor.

"You are here," Orochimaru stated. It fell out of his mouth and landed on Sakura's ears like a hammer on an anvil. "We were waiting for you to arrive..." With that, the Static Intent enveloped her completely, and it was just the two of them, master and apprentice. When Sakura was well and truly comatose, Orochimaru released the genjutsu around her and the two watched each other intently.

"So," she drawled, trying and failing to hide her nervousness. "You were the caveat, I see."

"Why did you want to take a genin cell?" Orochimaru asked flatly. "What emotion did I foster in you that compelled you to undertake this... madness?"

"I felt..." Anko struggled with the words, "...like I had to prove myself. That I was better than you were... good enough for my own students."

"It is unfortunate that I requested this team several years in advance," he said blandly. "Otherwise, you may not have been thrust into this quandary."

"Why are you doing this to me?" she moaned.

"Fu fu fu, I am not to fault for these circumstances. I see in Haruno potential that Hiruzen saw in me, and Uzumaki is a special case. The Hyuga certainly fulfills the requirement for balanced personalities and talent in a team. Perhaps the Council of Konoha wished to exercise their power for once... I would not fault them..."

Anko was silent for a moment. "Y'know, you always said that genin sucked. Maybe I'm still not free from you." Without warning she tried to punch Orochimaru in the face, but the man was gone before she even twitched. He emitted another dry laugh. "Mitarashi, you are not demonstrating the qualities required of a sensei."

"Oh yeah? Maybe I should bite them, eh? _That_'ll get rid of those pesky believers."

"Please refrain from actions that could be interpreted as pedophilic."

"You're one to talk, you snaky bastard..."

And with that, the unfathomably deep chasm seemed less wide.


	6. Trial By Fire

**Who hates the Land of Waves? Hands up, people! All right, I'm going to try a spin I've never seen before here. This is part one of the most unoriginal arc ever.**

"There are two main fields in regards to excellence as a ninja. My assistant Anko will teach strategy, teamwork and the critical thinking it is evident your Academy education was lacking in. I will endeavour to teach you of more practical things, such as chakra molding and elemental jutsu, summoning contracts and kekkei genkai. By the time you are chunin, you will be able to recognize, if not use, most jutsu in use by the main five villages. However, there will be aspects to this career you may regret in the future. Death is unavoidable, as is tedium and personal dislike. Be advised that if you complain, Anko will bite you."

* * *

**The Elder Son**

_Trial By Fire_

* * *

Almost predictably, Anko called in sick the very next day, so it was left to Orochimaru to decide what to do with his genin cell. There were a few options, and he didn't think that he was skilled enough as a teacher for the reasonable ones. Teaching them kinjutsu at this point was probably a mistake. He almost wished he'd gotten the Uchiha, but the kid was such an insufferably weak-kneed coward that he barely understood why he'd been made a ninja.

There was another possibility he could act on. His cute little ex-apprentice had foolishly squandered his chance to test the trio with their careers hanging in the balance, but that didn't mean he couldn't do better with what he had, and he had quite a bit.

"How are you today, Kushina?" he asked absently, sketching a formula for a seal designed to covertly reroute an enemy's chakra to their vital points automatically.

"My everything is sore," came a whispering rasp. "… still," it added.

"Hmm," the snake sannin muttered, crossing out a portion of the array and rewriting it. "Are you sure Kabuto gave you the requisite dosage of morphine, or are you lying to feed your addiction, as always?"

"Heh. You know me too well, you softhearted bastard," chuckled Kushina, and then winced. "I sound like a dying bunny with strep throat."

"Better than, how did you put it last time? A 'sickly water buffalo committing seppuku with a rusted hacksaw'?"

"I'm so _bored_ being stuck down here," Kushina moaned, and for once he conceded that she might have a point. Not seeing the sun for almost twelve years could hardly be good for one's psyche.

Nevertheless… "Tamale, you are incredibly ill," Orochimaru pointed out. "If I were to allow you to leave, which I cannot in good conscience do, you would die within minutes of being leaving the medical facilities. Sadly, whether that would be from your illness or from morphine withdrawal nobody will ever know."

"My name is Habanero, snakey. Habanero!"

"As you were, Jalapeno. Fu fu fu…"

"I hate you."

XXX

Team Seven assembled bright and early with cheerful smiles and murder in their hearts. Hinata was engaged in her favourite pastime, beating the stuffing out of Sakura, and Naruto was busy brooding, when all of them were transported to the Hokage Tower by a teleportation jutsu that only the chakra-attuned Sakura even faintly saw coming. As soon as they arrived, Naruto doubled over and heaved his breakfast onto the wooden floor.

"Gree—oh," Orochimaru murmured, on seeing the boy being ill. "Today, we will be-"

Naruto held up one hand, tilted his head to one side as if in thought, then vomited again.

"As I was saying," Orochimaru went on blithely, ignoring his student's discomfort with being teleported, "I have decided that we will be undertaking a C-Rank mission today, to test your capacity to act as a team and your overall competence as shinobi. If the mission is failed, I cannot send you back to the Academy, much as I would have liked to, but know that your future will be filled with remedial lessons and agony."

"I understood that genin were to take several D-Rank missions before leaving Konoha," Hinata input. "Why break from protocol?"

Orochimaru gave her a look. "I am Orochimaru. Do not question me, or a snake larger than a small mountain will devour you for three days and nights."

"Can you even- you know what?" Sakura bit herself off, "I'll take your word for it." Just in case the rumors about the 'Mad Scientist of Konoha' were true.

Their sensei smiled thinly. "Anko will not accompany us. This is a simple escort mission, one that could be taken solo by a reasonably competent chunin or a group such as yourselves. I will simply serve as a judge, if you will."

"The client?" asked Hinata, her white eyes tight and focused.

"Will arrive shortly."

"Aww yeah!" Naruto shouted. Sakura cuffed him on the back of the head, reducing his volume marginally. "We're starting off with an awesome C-Rank mission outside of the village! I've never even been outside of Konoha, but we're going now! Who are we protecting? A princess? A king? A baron, a knight, a caravan of gypsies, a-"

"A bibulous man, in his late sixties, wears glasses and has an uncontrollable verbal tick?" Hinata said pointedly.

"Huh," Naruto mused, "I never really thought of that. I mean, I guess it's possible, but why would we want to guard an old-"

"Who're you callin' old, ya brats? Fuck!" shouted an elderly man from across the mission assignment room. He was indeed a drunkard, armed with a half-empty bottle of rum at his side and a pair of tiny glasses on the tip of a bright red nose. He had tanned skin, dark eyes, and a bandana typical to the coastal regions, and his satchel was filled with massive scrolls, of the not-summoning variety, probably blueprints.

_'Takes dedication to get hammered at, what, nine in the morning?'_ Sakura decided, half in admiration and half in disgust.

"Hinata…." Naruto moaned, and the pearly-eyed Hyuuga gave him a blank stare.

"… can you see the future?" he asked excitedly, "or are you telepathic?"

"I betcha she can see through walls!" Sakura added loudly. "Whaddya think, Naruto?" She leaned enticingly on the boy's shoulder. "Just look at those eyes, huh? So blind, they can see everything…"

"Yeah…" murmured Naruto.

"I get a bunch of fucking snot-nosed morons? Bastard cheap-ass ninja! Fuck!"

"Ah. This is Tazuna. Tazuna, meet your ecorts, Naruto, Sakura and Hinata." Orochimaru smiled and handed a rolled-up piece of paper to Hinata. "Escort Tazuna to the capital of Wave Country to complete your mission." With a slight hand wave, he disappeared. It wasn't a bunshin or a shunshin, because those left clouds of smoke. Instead, the air rippled like an aftershock and swallowed him up.

"We leave immediately," Hinata said, picking a few sealing scrolls with basic supplies off nails on the wall. "We take the west route, out of Konoha and through Fire Country until we reach the sea. The trip will take four days, both ways."

"You sure?" Sakura asked mildly, picking up her own supply scroll. "There are other factors to consider, such as ambush or heavy rain."

"I am confident that one of those won't happen," Hinata said solidly, turning to lead the way. "This is, after all, a C-Ranked mission."

XXX

Mizuki arrived later, looking slightly perturbed. The Sandaime was rather busy, but it seemed Orochimaru had what he was looking for.

"G'morning, sensei," he greeted casually, and the pale man refocused his gaze on his ex-student.

"Mizuki. How may I assist you?" he said shortly.

He tried to hold it in, he really did. But some things just weren't meant to be swallowed. "Why did you send them on such a dangerous mission?" he blurted out. He at least had the decency to look ashamed at his outburst.

Orochimaru's face didn't change, remaining characteristically waxy and empty. "Do you question my judgement?" It was said with no emotion, no passion, no rebuke, no curiosity. Just flat delivery.

To be fair, Mizuki was an accomplished chunin, and he felt no shame in being one of Konoha's reliable scouts, guards and soldiers. But a good number of the jonin scared the hell out of him, and Orochimaru topped that list. Not even an intoxicated Tsunade or an enraged Minato could outdo Orochimaru's icy calmness.

"I-I-I-" he stuttered, wondering how his sensei could still get under his skin after all the years. "I'm n-n-not, M-m-m-master," he finally managed to say, albeit shakily. "Never would I d-dare to-"

Then Orochimaru smiled, his thin lips curling up genuine enjoyment. "No need to worry," he said softly, a hint of a serpentine lisp entering his voice. "I am confident in my ssskillss, enough sso that any danger they encounter will be minimal at worssst."

"Aren't there, uh, restrictions on that sort of, uh, thing?" Mizuki wondered aloud, not really speaking to Orochimaru. Unfortunately, he already knew the answer. Mitarashi's blatant disregard for authority came from somewhere, and he was pretty sure that she had made of game how much shit she could get up to while Orochimaru's back was turned and get away with.

It was a lot. So much so that after one particularly harrowing mission he had actually noticed the roots of his hair turn pale white. Tsubaki had disgusting-smelling shampoo that gave it its natural brown colour, but Anko could never know exactly how much of a coward he was. Eventually he let it fade, leaving only the white, but by then the damage was done.

Orochimaru knew, which was just as bad.

XXX

They trekked for two hours solid before anything happened, and even then it was sort of anticlimactic. Tazuna made a particularly foul comment about 'fucking Konoha', inciting the wrath of a pink-haired kunoichi with no real restraint. Ever the subtle one, Sakura had whirled on him, repressed rage driving her right arm into the man's neck. By chance or design, her fingers prodded a nerve, and the bottle slipped from his fingers, clattered to the ground and rolled away.

Right into a puddle of rainwater.

It took a second for them to realize that, despite the sky's clearness and the fact that everything thus far had been bone dry, that there was no logical reason for the puddle of water to be there. Hinata's words came back to Sakura then: _'I am confident one of those won't happen.'_ Well, at least it wasn't going to rain any time soon.

The sake disappeared into vanishing depths, deeper than any puddle had a right to be, and clattered against something with a remarkably dry smack. There was a muted exclamation of pain, a more audible bit of confusion, and then the genjutsu was abruptly replaced by a fifty-foot tall spray of water.

Naruto reacted first to the shadows swimming in the advancing column, shooting for Tazuna's waist and doggedly ignoring the architect's Asperger's sydrome-esque ramblings to drag the man to the relative safety of the field adjoining the path. Sakura and Hinata leapt into action, Byakugan blazing and shurikan flying towards the water. A wickedly spiked chain curled out, almost in slow motion, passing through where Tazuna once was and lazily curling shut in a flesh-shredding arc. Sakura threw herself off the ground into a vault while Hinata ducked under the chain, which vanished into the water again.

"It's an illusion!" Hinata roared, and Sakura nodded. Genjutsu involved projecting darkness and chakra outside one's body, which meant that anyone with a certain degree of chakra control could tear them apart. "Kai!" she shouted, and the water subsided in a wash of evaporation.

There were two of them, but they were easily the most terrifying shinobi Team Seven had ever met. Both wore masks, massive things designed to filter water and toxins, and headbands of the infamous Kirigakure. Each with a long horizontal slash carved through the emblem of the 'Bloody Mist'. Metal gauntlets, one for the left hand and one for the right, connected the men by the wrist, in between which was stretched the lethal chain that had assaulted the kunoichi.

"Well, isn't this something?" remarked the one on the left, relaxing his stance somewhat. "We're sent to kill an old drunk and his guards, a bunch of genin. I feel insulted, don't you?"

"Why you wastin' our fuckin' time?" roared his brother, rattling the bladed gauntlet menacingly. "Get the hell outta our way and you might see tomorrow!"

"Oh hell no!" Naruto shouted, dropping Tazuna onto a tree stump and charging recklessly at the speaker. The first rogue shinobi stepped calmly in front of Naruto and backhanded the boy, the gauntlet tearing a welt in Naruto's face. He skidded to a stop, reconsidered, then joined his team in a ragged line crossing the road.

"Desist," the Hyuga intoned, motioning with one hand behind her back. Sakura nodded, barely perceptible even by her all-seeing eye, and Naruto gave no indication of having seen it.

"May we take that as a no?" Gozu asked, deceptively polite, and in a blink of an eye, Hinata was in his face. "You are within range of my divination," she informed him.

Meanwhile, Naruto charged at Meizu, eagerly arming himself with a plethora of sharp handheld objects. The second ninja grinned beneath his mask, jerked lightly on the chain, and rolled backwards. Gozu leapt of his head, the chain rolling out to encircle Hinata and guard against Naruto's blades, and together they snapped the weapon tight. Naruto stumbled back, caught off guard, and Hinata was forced to execute some impressive gymnastics to avoid being diced.

Sakura came in from behind Meizu, carefully pressing her advantage as the her opponent fended off both her and Naruto at the same time, the chain swishing back and forth like an eager tail, playing razor shield and rounded sword. Gozu flicked his wrist, and the chain leapt out eagerly to drag Naruto's wrist to the ground, the blond cursing all the way. Meizu rounded on Sakura, emanating killing intent like a hunting dog, and the pinkette was forced on complete defense to evade the punishing blows.

Hinata stiffened her fingers, groped for her chakra, and thrust as much as she could into Gozu's hip. The older demon buckled, wincing, and Meizu casually kicked Sakura away and jumped in his brother's place against Hinata. The Gentle Fist attack was enough to cripple Gozu's mobility, but not his arms or his mind. Thinking quickly, he jerked his wrist and sent Naruto, still tied by the chain, careening into Hinata, who faltered. Sakura managed to land a brutal kick to the back of his head, but he rolled around her support and chained her legs together.

"Guys!" she called desperately, "I need help!"

"Aaargh, my head," Naruto moaned, promptly clapping his hands together to stop Meizu's kunai from piercing his chest. Gozu rippled the chain slightly, and Meizu grinned wickedly.

"Ready to die?" he snarled, rocketing to his feet and yanking on the chain with all his might. Sakura yelped as she was launched skywards over Meizu's head and crushed against the ground, the same momentum carrying the immobile Gozu into the air toward's Hinata, who was prostrate a few meters away.

Naruto rolled aside, although not in time to protect Sakura from crashing face-first into the dirt at astonishing speed. He capitalized by smashing a kunai point-blank into Meizu's wrist, although not the one holding his weapon. The enraged ninja howled in agony.

Hinata tried to move, but the falling Gozu pined her roughly to the ground. Neither of them able to move, the Kiri man used his weight to hold Hinata down while carefully sliding a neglected tanto from its sheath on his hip. Her knee thumped him painfully on the other hip, and he felt that side go numb as well, his entire body limp below the waist. He raised the tanto above his head and stabbed down. Hinata threw her entire weight to the left, but only succeeded in redirecting the knife to her right shoulder. It burned fiercely, which meant it was probably poisoned.

_'Damnit!'_ Naruto thought, watching one of his other teammates take a hit. He pulled two kunai from his pouch and jammed them between the links of the chain. With a pull, he dislodged Gozu from Hinata and pulled Meizu off balance. With the last dregs of her strength, Hinata chopped her hand across Gozu's throat, and with a choked squeak the elder chunin stopped struggling.

"S'just you 'n me, brat," Meizu growled, fiddling with the gauntlet on his hand. With a click, the chain came free of its mooring and fell to the ground in a loose coil, clinking metallically. "Just lemme at the old bastard and we'll leave! Or, if you want it the hard way..." Killing intent washed out from him like a heat wave, choking and thick.

"You hurt Sakura!" Naruto shouted, drawing an indignant gasp from Hinata and a pained chuckle from the girl in question. He sprinted forward, allowing Meizu time to retaliate before throwing everything left in his arsenal at the Mist ninja. It worked partially, his shurikan-based weapon supply cutting off the man's escape routes and wounding him in the belly, but he wore enough armour that most of it was ineffectual.

"Best you got?" he roared, flicking through a set of hand signs. "Haze Mist Technique!"

Meizu pulled his mask down, opened his mouth and exhaled a toxic purple gas, which dripped viscously to the ground and built up in a swirl. "What now, Leaf brat?" he taunted, sliding his mask back onto his face. He pulled out his own kunai and launched them at Naruto, who ducked back.

"Gotta have a plan," he muttered, watching Meizu intently. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Sakura's body ripple slightly, like a mirage, and he quickly put it together.

"Hey, what the hell?" he screamed, trying to blend terror and excitement into his tone. Meizu didn't look, but he did flinch, and that was when Sakura's knife was driven under his ribcage. She flickered into view, smiling triumphantly in a three-quarter profile, pulling the kunai out of the shocked Meizu. Then she crumpled to the ground in the middle of the gas, disappearing from view just as the purple poison enveloped Hinata.


End file.
